As election nears, pandemic-weary Ecuadoreans lean toward return to socialism

Ecuadorean presidential candidate Andres Arauz participates in a televised debate, in Guayaquil, Ecuador January 16, 2021. Ecuador National Electoral Council/Handout via REUTERS

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuadorean voters struggling under a battered economy are leaning toward a return to socialism in February's presidential vote, as nostalgia for better times under former leftist president Rafael Correa has pushed one of his proteges into the lead.

Economist Andres Arauz, 35, is promising to revive the heavy social spending of Correa's decade in power and to tear up an IMF-backed austerity plan that has been made more painful by the coronavirus pandemic.